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YouTube has the ability to remove videos seen as having the potential to recruit terrorists, says Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano.

The judge joined Jenna Lee on Happening Now to discuss growing questions on why the videos of radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki – leader of the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen – have been allowed to remain on YouTube.

Investigators have linked the ideology of al-Awlaki, who was killed in Yemen five years ago, to at least 11 incidents since 2009, including the recent attack on the campus of Ohio State University.

According to a YouTube representative, “YouTube has clear policies in prohibiting terrorist recruitment and content intending to incite violence, and we quickly remove videos violating these policies when flagged by our users.” So why then are al-Awlaki’s videos allowed to remain on the platform, Lee asked.

“The short answer is his videos are still out there because like flag burning, they are protected speech,” Napolitano said. “Even though they are hateful, even though they advocate violence, even though they are profoundly un-American, they are protected speech…protected from the government…but not protected from YouTube, which is not the government.

“So the First Amendment says the government shall not interfere with free speech, but YouTube could take them down in a flash just because it doesn’t want this stuff being propagated on its platform.”

Napolitano said YouTube should make a “business judgment” on how to handle this content.

“If they think their their shareholders want a free and open platform where any political idea can be aired no matter how horrible, hateful or harmful it may be, they should keep it on there,” he said. “But if they want to cleanse the airwaves of this horror and terror producing stuff, they can take it down with impunity.”

The left aided Islamic terrorists most not with street protests, but by embedding counterintuitive narratives into the framework of counterterrorism. These narratives turned reality on its head.

In counterterrorism, counterintuitive narratives transformed inaction into a virtue.

One of the most pervasive myths was that Islamic terrorists actually wanted us to fight them and that we could only defeat them by ignoring them. The irrationality of the myth that terrorists wanted us to bomb and kill them was exceeded only by its persistence among experts and political officials.

Popularly known as “Playing into their hands”, the goal of this counterintuitive narrative was to make the ostrich approach appear prudent and masterful while flipping around patriotism by accusing national security hawks of playing into the hands of the terrorists by killing them.

Only the appeasers had the secret to defeating Islamic terrorism while the patriots were truly traitors.

Trump faced repeated accusation from Hillary and her proxies that he was playing into the hands of ISIS with calls to get tough on Islamic terrorism. And you can expect the smear that he’s playing into the hands of the terrorists by bombing and killing them to recur throughout his administration.

But the myth has been shredded by James E. Mitchell’s book, “Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying To Destroy America.” As the man who helped the CIA break terrorists, Mitchell had written the “book” on effective methods for fighting Islamic terror. And now he actually wrote the book on what the terrorists really wanted and fear.

And no, they didn’t want to be bombed. We weren’t “playing into their hands” by killing them or by making it harder for them to come to America. It was the left that was playing into Al Qaeda’s hands.

And that still is.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, revealed that Al Qaeda shared the leftist panic and disaster over Bush’s “cowboy” approach to fighting terrorists. The United States had backed down from Islamic terrorists so many times that they had come to take our defeatism for granted. Al Qaeda didn’t have a masterful plan to lure us into Afghanistan, as the left liked to insist, instead it expected President Bush to follow in Clinton’s footsteps by delivering an empty speech and then writing it off as a law enforcement problem. Much as Obama had done with Benghazi.

It wasn’t expecting the roar of jets over Kandahar.

“How was I supposed to know that cowboy George Bush would announce he wanted us ‘dead or alive’ and then invade Afghanistan to hunt us down?’’ Khalid Sheikh Mohammed whined.

“KSM explained that if the United States had treated 9/11 like a law enforcement matter, he would have had time to launch a second wave of attacks”, but instead Al Qaeda and its plans for the next wave of attacks were crushed “by the ferocity and swiftness of George W. Bush’s response.”

Like Saddam’s WMDs, the left has made great sport of the lack of major follow-up attacks by Al Qaeda. But Al Qaeda couldn’t follow up because it was under too much pressure. Unsurprisingly, killing terrorists actually worked. Unknown numbers of American lives were saved because President Bush believed that killing terrorists was more effective than appeasing them.

The left had always insisted on treating 9/11 as a law enforcement matter. That is why Obama aggressively pushed to move Islamic terrorists into criminal courts. Even his Osama bin Laden bid was only an effort to capture the top Al Qaeda terrorist so that he could put him on trial in a criminal court.

“My belief was if we had captured him, that I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaeda,” Obama had argued, showcasing a typical counterintuitive narrative myth.

Osama’s death proved to be a lucky political break for Obama, but he hadn’t been trying to fight terror. Instead he was working to appease it.

Various counterintuitive narratives were invoked in defense of this bad policy, including the “Playing into their hands” myth. But now we know that it was leftists who were playing into Al Qaeda’s hands.

The mastermind of 9/11 wanted us to send the cops after Al Qaeda. He wasn’t looking to dance with an A-10. And had Bill Clinton turned over the White House to Al Gore instead of George W. Bush, 9/11 would have been far more devastating as the opening round of a series of major Islamic terror attacks.

Another great counterintuitive myth is that Islamic immigration, which provides fertile recruiting ground for foreign terror groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS to pursue their Jihad on America using operatives already embedded in the country, is actually the best way to fight Islamic terrorism.

When Trump called for a ban on Muslim migration, counterintuitive narratives were deployed that accused him, once again, of playing into the hands of ISIS and Al Qaeda. Islamic immigration, the counterintuitive myth claimed, disproved the claims of Islamic terrorists about America. The more Muslim migrants we took in, the more Muslims would come to love us and reject Islamic terrorism.

But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed revealed that he did not oppose Islamic immigration. He viewed it as the certain way for Muslims to defeat America and the free world. Islamic terrorism was a short range gamble. The “moonshot” of Islamic conquest wasn’t terrorism, it was Muslim migration to the West.

And even in the short term, Islamic terror was still enabled by Islamic immigration.

“Jihadi-minded brothers would immigrate into the United States” and “wrap themselves in America’s rights and laws’ while continuing their attacks,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted.

While the counterintuitive narrative deeply embedded in CVE insists that Islamist “civil rights” groups like CAIR are our best “partners” in fighting Islamic terrorism and that extending every possible legal protection to Islamic terrorists will help discredit them, Mohammed saw Islamic migration and the whole Islamist civil rights scam enabled by the radicals at the ACLU and elsewhere, as cover for Islamic terrorism.

All of this is obvious to any thinking person who possesses enough common sense to come out of the rain. So why did so many important people fall for the counterintuitive myths of counterterrorism?

The strange seductiveness of counterintuitive narratives lies in their rejection of common sense solutions. Instead they follow the standard leftist pattern of descending into the matrix of a logically illogical system which is internally consistent, but makes no sense when applied to the real world.

Counterintuitive narratives make elites and experts feel smart for appearing to transcend common sense to grasp deeper insights into human nature and how the world works. Such gnostic revelations are a big part of the left’s appeal, particularly to college students, but these mythologies are a myth.

The left loves to play with language, but word games don’t change reality. They just seduce those who consider themselves bright into believing that their cleverness is more meaningful than reality.

But eventually the ivory towers fall, the sand castles are washed away by the tide and the lies die.

Common sense was always right. Killing terrorists works. Appeasing them doesn’t. Terrorists are broken through pressure, not milk and cookies. Trump’s proposals work. Those of the left only enable terrorism.

“America will expose her neck for us to slaughter,” Mohammed predicted. And it did.

But just as the mastermind of September 11 had not anticipated what President Bush would do, Islamic terrorists never saw President Trump coming.

***

A good follow-up on the manipulation of language to achieve political ends:

The conversation began with Kassam asking Dr. Gorka for his take on CIA Director John Brennan, saying that if President-elect Donald Trump keeps his campaign promise to exit from the Iran nuclear deal, it would be “the height of folly.”

“John Brennan, to be honest, was a man who was an intelligence analyst, worked through the system, tried his hand at being an operator, failed abysmally, was a very unsatisfactory chief of station, and then under the Obama administration became the wingman for the President, promoting his disastrous policies around the world,” Gorka replied.

Kassam next brought up the terrorist attack on Ohio State University by Somali-born refugee Abdul Razak Ali Artan and the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.

“We have to look at the forensics of that claim,” Gorka advised. “We have to look at what he was posting on social media, his connections on the Internet. The rapidity with which the claim was made is very interesting. So I’d give it a 50-50 chance that this is a serious claim of responsibility for the attack.”

Kassam noted that all of these “lone wolf jihad” stories seem to circle back to one person, whom Gorka was able to name immediately: Anwar al-Awlaki. He agreed with Kassam’s comment that Awlaki seems to have a more enduring legacy as an inspiration for terrorism than even Osama bin Laden.

“There is one man who, from beyond the grave, is perhaps the most dangerous jihadi today. It is Anwar al-Awlaki,” Gorka declared. “Any significant case, whether it’s the Boston bombing case, whether it’s this case, sooner or later, you find that the individuals who executed that attack were consuming Anwar al-Awlaki’s audio lectures, were reading his materials. He is more significant than bin Laden today, by a long shot.”

“The key thing about Anwar al-Awlaki is that this is a man who was socialized in both worlds that are essential to successful jihadi operations,” Gorka explained. “Coming, as his family did, from Yemen, yet growing up from a young age in America, means that he straddles both cultures. He can quote the hadith. He can quote the Koran. He can talk about the need for jihadism to cleanse Islam of the influence, the undermining corruption of the West. But at the same time, he knows how to do it in English. He knows how to do it using the cultural themes of the West. And as a result, he is all the more dangerous, because he isn’t like bin Laden: a man who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, spent his formative years in Afghanistan. This is a man who operated in both worlds, and that is why he is so deadly.”

Gorka noted there has been no effort to delegitimize Awlaki as a religious authority, the way Osama bin Laden was diminished after his decidedly unheroic death because “we’d have to talk about religion, and we’re not allowed to do that, at least under the current administration.”

“If we have the censorship, the political correctness that we do here in Washington – and to be honest, in the UK, as well – you can’t talk about the credibility of individual jihadi strategists without talking about religion, without talking about Islam, without talking about the religious texts they’re quoting. So if you deny that, if you say that’s prohibited territory, then all you have is the killing part of it, the whack-a-mole that we call it here in the United States. And as a result, you miss the broader picture, which is the ideology of why people become terrorists.”

“At least here in America, I don’t know about the UK, that’s all going to change on January 20th,” Gorka predicted, referencing the date of President Trump’s inauguration.

Kassam asked if the appointment of Mitt Romney as secretary of state would represent the kind of change for which Gorka was hoping.

“That would depend wholly upon the agreement that he came to with Mr. Trump,” Gorka replied. “The thing that people don’t understand is that Mr. Trump is different. You can’t judge him by the expectations of former politicians and former presidents-elect. This guy has his own rule book.”

“He’s not my favorite candidate, I’ll be honest, but the decision is up to Mr. Trump. And if he can come to a deal – well, he is the dealmaker par excellence,” Gorka added. “I’d like to see somebody like Ambassador Bolton, a hardcore individual who knows where the skeletons are buried at the State Department. But at the end of the day, the American people chose Donald J. Trump, and he will choose his own cabinet.”

Finally, Kassam mentioned the shocking story of a German intelligence officer who was arrested for helping to plot an Islamist terror attack on his own organization’s headquarters. “Do you think this is a sole operator, or do you think there is a wider attempt to infiltrate these organizations?” he asked.

“I’ve always said, for years now, there is no such thing as ‘lone wolf terrorism,’” Gorka answered. “That is a phrase invented to make the average voter stupid. We never, ever have seen a significant plot of an individual sitting in his basement, getting online, and suddenly becoming a jihadi. Sooner or later, there are links to other individuals, to networks, to people who provide training, logistical support. So if this is a serious arrest, if this was a serious plot, I expect there to be a broader conspiracy.”

Ohio is reaping what it has sown. They have protected and promoted jihadis for several years.

In 2009, the Ohio Department of Homeland Security hosted a day-long seminar which included senior Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood officials, including Hani Sakr, a member of the U.S. MB’s Board of Directors, and the leader of Hamas in Ohio, Asma Uddin.

Member of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood Hani Sakr Speaking at Ohio DHS Conference

Ohio Hamas Leader Asma Uddin Speaking at Ohio DHS Conference in 2009

In 2010, the Strategic Engagement Group (predecessor to UTT) conducted a 3-day training program at the Columbus (Ohio) Police Department. At the end of the program, the Ohio DHS Director Bill Vedra, the Chief of the Columbus Police Department, and others came into the room and defended Hamas (doing business and CAIR), the outreach programs to the Muslim community, and commented negatively about the 3-day program even though none of them sat through one minute of the training.

Several of the officers in the room stood up and confronted the leadership, calling them out.

One of the people Ohio DHS Director Vedra defended was Omar Alomari, a Jordanian who was later fired from Ohio DHS. Alomari produced a pamphlet for Ohio DHS which listed organizations they worked with including Hamas (dba CAIR), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Muslim Alliance of North America (MANA), Muslim American Society (MAS), Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and the Muslim Students Association (MSA) – all Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood organizations.

In February 2016, Somali Mohamed Barry walked into the Nazareth Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio with a machete screaming “allah u akbar” and began attacking customers. He injured four people and was later shot dead by police. The restaurant is owned by an Israeli.

Columbus police spokesman Sergeant Rich Weiner stated, “There was no rhyme or reason as to who he was going after.” The FBI investigated Barry in 2012 for making “radical Islamic threats” but then abandoned the investigation, and FBI Special Agent Rick Smith said it was “too early” to jump to conclusions. (dallasnews.com, 2/12/16, “Man Killed After Machete Attack”)

CNN is still searching for a motive.

In describing this attack, the Washington Post wrote, “Did the quiet immigrant suffer a mental breakdown? Or was the attack an orchestrated act of international jihad as claimed by a host of anti-Islamic groups?”

Is it possible the entire effort by the jihadi Movement in Ohio – and everywhere else across the nation – was/is to get the leadership of the police and FBI to place their trust in the Muslim leaders to “help” them “understand” acts of “terrorism” in a way that never points back to jihad, Islam and sharia?

This week, after yet another jihadi attack in Ohio, the response was the same.

Until law enforcement decides to prosecute and lock up terrorists instead of befriending them and allowing them to train their departments, this nonsense will not end.

Citizens must stand firm and hold elected officials, police chiefs and state homeland security officials feet to the fire, and ensure they are trained by UTT, not by Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

In an exchange between a liberal and Dana Loesch on the Kelly File the other night it was suggested by the liberal that officer Alan Horujko was too quick to use deadly force. Aaron Cohen explains why it is so important to quickly identify the perpetrator as a terrorist and not a criminal and therefore take the head shot immediately to inactivate the hands holding the weapon.

Aaron Cohen, a former Israeli special forces soldier, is an American counter-terrorism consultant who has trained U.S. military, police, and SWAT teams in confronting such threats.

He says Alan Horujko, the Ohio State University cop who shot and killed a knife-wielding man on Monday, used Israeli-based tactics to “neutralize” the threat. Cohen spoke with the Sun about the method, which he has been teaching for years, on Tuesday.

Q: What is unique about these tactics?

A: The tactics he used involved a very Israeli-centric type of response. He initiated a single-officer response, which is rare for U.S. law enforcement. Patrol will typically wait for two, three more officers to show up before making entry into such a situation. The Israeli model doesn’t allow for that. There is no time. He was able to get directly to the threat via sprinting. The philosophy is: For every second you waste, another innocent person is killed. They engage using a point-shooting method, just focusing on the front end of the weapon. In short distances, where terrorism occurs in crowded areas, it allows you to get on target very quickly. Then there is the neutralizing head-shot to keep the threat’s hands from moving. This officer still fired three, four shots to the body, but if the attacker is still a threat, we sprint up to the threat to fire a shot into the head.

Q: In the case of Ohio State, what would have gone through the head of this officer?

A: Going through the mind of this particular officer would be the protocol he was taught via the Israeli model, which is based on a counter-terror response doctrine he had been walked through over several days. He has already been put through the paces of responding alone, with a combat philosophy designed for terrorism: Spot all the threats immediately, neutralize all of the threats immediately, and then continue sweeping and looking for more threats. Also, speed. I don’t have time to wait. If I wait and I don’t take action, and deploy aggression as an actual tactic, more innocent life will be lost.

Q: Are an increasing number of officers such as this being taught these tactics?

A: There was a lot of it happening after 9/11. But once President (Barack) Obama came into office, a lot of the training for these agencies was cut. During the (George W.) Bush administration, there was a lot of counter-terror money and a lot of training happening with these agencies. Then I noticed a demilitarization. I don’t necessarily believe this was the most effective thing to do, not with terrorism.

What is it like to stare into the face of evil? James E. Mitchell knows.

In his gripping new memoir, “Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying To Destroy America,” Mitchell describes the day he was questioning Khalid Sheik Mohammed, when the 9/11 mastermind announced he had something important to say. “KSM then launched into a gory and detailed description of how he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl,” Mitchell writes. Up to that moment, the CIA did not know KSM had personally carried out the murder. When asked whether it was “hard to do” (meaning emotionally difficult), KSM misunderstood the question. “Oh, no, no problem,” KSM said, “I had very sharp knives. Just like slaughtering sheep.”

To confirm his story, the CIA had KSM reenact the beheading so that it could compare the features of his hands and forearms to those in the video of Pearl’s murder. “Throughout the reenactment, KSM smiled and mugged for the cameras. Sometimes he preened,” Mitchell writes. When informed that the CIA had confirmed that he was telling the truth, KSM smiled.

This is the pure evil Mitchell and his colleagues confronted each day at CIA “black sites.” “I have looked into the eyes of the worst people on the planet,” Mitchell writes. “I have sat with them and felt their passion as they described what they see as their holy duty to destroy our way of life.”

The world has heard almost nothing from KSM in the 15 years since the 9/11 attacks, but Mitchell has spent thousands of hours with him and other captured al-Qaeda leaders. Now, for the first time, Mitchell is sharing what he says KSM told him.

Mitchell is an American patriot who has been unjustly persecuted for his role in crafting an interrogation program that helped stop terrorist attacks and saved countless lives. He does not shy from the controversies and pulls no punches in describing the interrogations. If anything, readers may be surprised by the compassion he showed these mass murderers. But the real news in his book is what happened after enhanced interrogations ended and the terrorists began cooperating.

Once their resistance had been broken, enhanced interrogation techniques stopped and KSM and other detainees became what Mitchell calls a “Terrorist Think Tank,” identifying voices in phone calls, deciphering encrypted messages and providing valuable information that led the CIA to other terrorists. Mitchell devotes an entire chapter to the critical role KSM and other detainees played in finding Osama bin Laden. KSM held classes where he lectured CIA officials on jihadist ideology, terrorist recruiting and attack planning. He was so cooperative, Mitchell writes, KSM “told me I should be on the FBI’s Most Wanted List because I am now a ‘known associate’ of KSM and a ‘graduate’ of his training camp.”

KSM also described for Mitchell many of his as yet unconsummated ideas for future attacks, the terrifying details of which Mitchell does not reveal for fear they might be implemented. “If we ever allow him to communicate unmonitored with the outside world,” Mitchell writes, “he could easily spread his deviously simple but potentially deadly ideas.”

But perhaps the most riveting part of the book is what KSM told Mitchell about what inspired al-Qaeda to attack the United States — and the U.S. response he expected. Today, some on both the left and the right argue that al-Qaeda wanted to draw us into a quagmire in Afghanistan — and now the Islamic State wants to do the same in Iraq and Syria. KSM said this is dead wrong. Far from trying to draw us in, KSM said that al-Qaeda expected the United States to respond to 9/11 as we had the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut — when, KSM told Mitchell, the United States “turned tail and ran.” He also said he thought we would treat 9/11 as a law enforcement matter, just as we had the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the USS Cole in Yemen — arresting some operatives and firing a few missiles into empty tents, but otherwise leaving him free to plan the next attack.

“Then he looked at me and said, ‘How was I supposed to know that cowboy George Bush would announce he wanted us ‘dead or alive’ and then invade Afghanistan to hunt us down?’” Mitchell writes. “KSM explained that if the United States had treated 9/11 like a law enforcement matter, he would have had time to launch a second wave of attacks.” He was not able to do so because al-Qaeda was stunned “by the ferocity and swiftness of George W. Bush’s response.”

But KSM said something else that was prophetic. In the end, he told Mitchell, “We will win because Americans don’t realize . . . we do not need to defeat you militarily; we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.”

KSM explained that large-scale attacks such as 9/11 were “nice, but not necessary” and that a series of “low-tech attacks could bring down America the same way ‘enough disease-infected fleas can fell an elephant.’ ” KSM “said jihadi-minded brothers would immigrate into the United States” and “wrap themselves in America’s rights and laws” until they were strong enough to rise up and attack us. “He said the brothers would relentlessly continue their attacks and the American people would eventually become so tired, so frightened, and so weary of war that they would just want it to end.”

“Eventually,” KSM said, “America will expose her neck for us to slaughter.”

KSM was right. For the past eight years, our leaders have told us that we are weary of war and need to focus on “nation building at home.” We have been defeating ourselves by quitting — just as KSM predicted.

But quitting will not bring us peace, KSM told Mitchell. He explained that “it does not matter that we do not want to fight them,” Mitchell writes, adding that KSM explained “America may not be in a religious war with him, but he and other True Muslims are in a religious war with America” and “he and his brothers will not stop until the entire world lives under Sharia law.”

The German government has been trying to portray itself as completely confident that Islam and the West can integrate smoothly. It was therefore somewhat surprising when nearly 200 police raids smashed an Islamist sect over the weekend, on the charge of recruiting German nationals for service in the Islamic State (ISIS).

The group, which had been under surveillance for a year, had recruited about 140 people to join militants in Syria and Iraq, the German interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, told a news conference later in the day. In all, about 500 people in Germany are believed to have some connection to the organization.

Its members have been a familiar sight, handing out German-language copies of the Koran on the streets and in shopping centers across the country since 2011. The group has also posted propaganda videos on the Internet promoting violence, officials said.

The story provides a window on the divisions within radical Islam. Even forms that are not the most radical can apparently be leveraged by Islamists to support the utterly radical. German-language copies of the Koran by themselves represent a departure from the most radical forms of Islam. This is because the Koran is supposed to be the word of God in a nearly pure form. Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad was ordered to “recite” the words spoken to him by an archangel, which words came from God. If you think of the matter as a kind of telephone game, only two interpreters then stand between you and God Himself. One of them is an angel of high degree, and angels in Islam have no free will. (Indeed, free will is undesirable in the Islamic theological picture, since after all the only thing you could do with it is fall away from God’s will — sin, in other words.) Thus, the angel’s transmission should have been fairly reliable.

Muhammad’s interpretation of the divine revelation is thus the only occasion for error, so long as you stick to the original language. Theologically, Muslims admit that Muhammad could occasionally err. A group of verses is said to have been given by a Satanic source rather than the angelic one, and Muhammad is supposed to have passed them on in error. These verses were the inspiration for Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses, which caused him to be placed under a death sentence by radical clerics from Iran. Nevertheless, the idea that Muhammad could have introduced error into the Koran is orthodox. Another source of potential error arises with any translation of the Koran into any other language than the classical Arabic in which it was originally given. Since preserving the integrity of God’s message to humanity is of first importance, the most conservative sects of Islam simply do not allow translation at all. This German sect, by providing German translations, has thus already departed from the most radical visions.

Nevertheless, they were also providing fighters to ISIS. Indeed, Syrian refugees to Germany have found its native sects far too conservative for their liking. That shows that the fact that a sect is not as radical as possible does not imply that it is therefore safe, or not a danger to a Western system. Groups such as Hizb-ut Tahrir, who claim to eschew violence, similarly recruit for more radical organizations than themselves. The threat posed by such organizations must be kept in mind.

All the same, Germany has elected to focus most of its attention not on the threat from radical Islam, but on groups opposed to radical Islam. Much as London has elected to invest vast resources in targeting so-called “hate speech,” Germany has elected to focus its attention on those who object to Islam’s most radical messages. Germany has raided the homes of immigration critics, considering them hate criminals for questioning the compatibility of Islam and the West. Though these citizens have legitimate concerns, the government takes it to be more important to block their criticism or skepticisms about radical Islam than to address radical Islam itself.

The degree of “radical” in “radical Islam” is not the point, as this example shows. Less-radical organizations still feed the most-radical. Islam needs a reformation, one that addresses its long history of theology in a way that advances human rights. If Muhammad could introduce error into the Koran, why should he not have introduced error on these points of human dignity and free will?

The New York Times has a story highlighting the problems facing European police agencies. It turns on a particular case out of Germany, one in which a refugee turned terrorist without the European police having any idea. Fortunately, American intelligence tipped them to the terrorist in question before he could stage the attack he was planning. German attempts to arrest him failed, however, and he escaped back into the flood of Syrian refugees. Only when other refugees turned him in were they able to capture him.

And then, before they could interrogate him for any intelligence, he hung himself.

The takeaway for the Times is that the Europeans are too reliant on American capacities.

[A] series of [attacks] in Germany, France and elsewhere has exposed the lack of knowledge about the backgrounds of many, if not most, of the newcomers and the potential for them to be radicals or to be radicalized after arriving in Europe.

On both fronts, the situation is creating a particular political tension in Germany. The National Security Agency’s activities are under fierce scrutiny in Germany by a seemingly never-ending special parliamentary committee.

“American agencies are Europe’s best counterterrorists,” said Peter Neumann, a terrorism expert at King’s College London.

Germany’s lawmakers have passed a new spy law that is intended to address some of these challenges. They are not the first to do so. In the wake of the Belgian attacks, Italy’s Prime Minister called for a more unified European response to terrorism. One of the criticisms facing Europe’s response is that it lacks a central police agency like the FBI that can act directly on terror threats across national borders the way the FBI does across state borders.

On the other hand, Marc Tyrell at Small Wars Journal rightly points out that a higher-level bureaucracy is often necessarily blind to street-level indications of danger. Likewise, the classification of information within major Federal agencies like the CIA and FBI often means that communication doesn’t flow downward to local police agencies either. There is no guarantee that adding another level of protection will work, especially not if that level of protection is placed behind classification walls.

Likewise, there is a concern about focusing on the right set of dangers. Spying resources are only helpful if they are properly targeted, but Europe has so far seemed inclined to focus its increased resources on its own citizens instead of the influx of refugees. For example, Germany has engaged in police raids targeting those who express concern about the refugee influx. In London, an expensive new cyber security unit — targeting online activity of citizens — will focus not on radical Islam but on “cyber hate speech.”

The scale of the crisis also poses challenges. Belgian police correctly identified some of the Brussels bombers, but had to drop its inquiry into them because it could not spare the resources for that particular case. German police are likewise facing a crime wave that is overwhelming their available resources. Leaked reports indicate that German police only expect this refugee crime wave to worsen.

[O]f these 1,000 or so suspected terrorists, the FBI only has the resources to thoroughly monitor a select few. The precise number of round-the-clock FBI surveillance teams is classified… but sources familiar with Bureau resources say that the number is “shockingly” low, only in the dozens. At one point last year, sources reported that the Bureau was watching 48 people intensely, a number that is towards the upper limit of the FBI’s regular surveillance resources.

That means that even of the 1,000 American citizens and residents that the government believes are most at-risk of executing a terror attacks—the top .0003 percent most radical threats among the nation’s 330,000,000 residents—only around 5 to 10 percent are under 24-hour watch.

The United States is far richer than most nations in Europe. It has a government committed to building out the security state. It has far fewer Muslims, both in raw numbers and as a percentage, and it has accepted only a small percentage of the refugees that Europe has done. If the United States simply cannot keep up with the terror threat as it stands today, Europe cannot hope to do so.

And that is with the crisis as it stands. The upcoming Russian-led offensive against Aleppo will bring a new wave of refugees. The offensive against Mosul, meanwhile, is expected to produce at least a million more just by itself. Some other solution than admitting floods of refugees, and then trying to police them, must be adopted.

UTT (Understanding the Threat) is the only organization in the nation which provides law enforcement agencies a detailed understanding of the threat from the Global Islamic Movement, investigative techniques to identify and locate jihadi organizations and jihadis (“terrorists”), and UTT is the only organization providing state and local leaders strategies to dismantle the jihadi networks in their communities.

UTT encourages you to view our new promotional video HERE and support UTT as you are able.

A Muslim legal group, girded with $1.8 million in grant money from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF), has helped influence major policy changes in the war on terror, including the Department of Homeland Security’s screening of individuals with suspected terror ties and the FBI’s training program for its agents working in counterterrorism.

Internal records, made public by the hacking group DC Leaks, show OSF spent $40 million between 2008 and 2010 on programs aimed at weakening U.S. counterterrorism policy.

Muslim Advocates’ Executive Director Farhana Khera played a key role in shaping the foundations’ spending. Khera co-authored a 2007 memo that “informed” the foundations’ U.S. Programs Board’s decision to create the National Security and Human Rights Campaign (NSHRC), a Sept. 14, 2010 OSF document discussing the program’s reauthorization, shows.

Closing Guantanamo Bay, eliminating torture and methods such as the extraordinary rendition of prisoners, and ending the use of secret prisons;

Ending warrantless and “unchecked” surveillance;

Ensuring that anti-terrorism laws and law enforcement activities do not target freedom of speech, association or religious expression;

Reducing ethnic and religious profiling of people of Muslim, Arab or South Asian extraction;

Decreasing secrecy and increasing oversight of executive actions, and expose U.S. government or private individuals who abuse or violate the law.

Some of these policies, such as closing Guantanamo and ending enhanced interrogation techniques, already were also advocated by Obama administration. OSFclaimed its work laid the groundwork for implementing those policies. The Edward Snowden leaks cast light on the depth of the government’s warrantless surveillance activity. The other goals are more difficult to assess.

Muslim Advocates was founded in 2005 as an offshoot of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers. It often criticizes U.S. counterterrorism strategies that use sting operations and informants as discriminatory.

A funders’ roundtable created by OSF in 2008 helped coordinate the grant making among several left-leaning foundations, ” in order to “dismantle the flawed ‘war on terror’ paradigm on which national security policy is now based.” At least “two dozen” foundations participated in the roundtable’s strategy sessions as of the end of 2008.

“It’s amazing that one foundation donated an amount that CAIR and [Muslim] Advocates say is the huge sum of money that funds the entire anti-jihad campaign,” Jasser said. “… That wasn’t from one foundation. That was an addition of [the money given to] everybody that they threw under the bus.”

By contrast, OSF and Atlantic Philanthropies spent $41.5 million in just three years. OSF dedicated another $26 million to the NSHRC program from 2011-2014.

OSF additionally funded a study by the New America Foundation equating the terror threat posed right-wing extremists with al-Qaida. An Oct. 17, 2011 memo discussing NSHRC grants notes that New America received $250,000, partly to write two reports. The first aimed at creating a “‘safe space’ in which Muslims in America feel free to hold controversial political dialogues, organize without fear of unwarranted government surveillance.” The second aimed to “correct mistaken public beliefs that Al-Qaeda’s brand of terrorism is unique to Islam and that most terrorists are Muslim.”

The paper promised “to show how adherents of each extremist ideology use different language to justify very similar political means and goals. By demonstrating parallels among militant groups, this paper will aim to separate politically focused terrorism from the religion of Islam.”

Arguments from this report continue to help frame how Democrats and their allies talk about the jihadist threat. New America’s statistics and arguments recently came up in a House hearing about the threat from homegrown Islamic terrorists.

“According to the New America Foundation, there have been more incidents of right-wing extremist attacks in the United States than violent jihadist attacks since 9/11. I’m not minimizing jihadist attacks. In that light, can you explain what your office plans to do with respect to domestic right-wing extremism?” Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., asked Department of Homeland Security Office of Community Partnerships Director George Selim during a House subcommittee hearing last month.

New America’s effort to conflate right-wing extremists with al-Qaida glossed over a major difference – namely al-Qaida’s reliance on mass casualty attacks and suicide bombings.

New America’s latest data shows that jihadists have killed more people since 9/11 than right-wing extremists.

“What you’ve uncovered is the fact … that the Soros foundation works to obfuscate on national security,” Jasser said. “Muslim Advocates clearly is a prime example of the sickness in Washington related to dealing with the central reforms necessary to make within the House of Islam.

“You’ll see that the Soros foundation is spending money on organizations that deny the very principles they are defenders of, which are feminism, gay rights, individual rights. Muslim Advocates’ entire bandwidth is spent on attacking the government and blocking any efforts at counterterrorism.”

Muslim Advocates also opposes discussion on reform within the Muslim community and supports those who have theocratic tendencies, Jasser said.

“You have evidence here that the Soros foundation is part and parcel of the reason for the suffocation of moderation voices – reformist voices – in Islam,” Jasser said. “Muslim Advocates really ought to change their name to Islamist Advocates, and what the Soros foundation really is doing is just advocating for Islamists.”

OSF also contributed $150,000 in 2011 and $185,000 in 2012 to a donor advised fund run by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. It used this money to pay Hattaway Communications, a consulting firm run by former Hillary Clinton adviser Doug Hattaway, to develop a messaging strategy for Muslim Advocates and similar organizations. Hattaway’s message strategy painted Muslims as victims of American national security policies.

Khera used Hattaway’s strategy to paint the New York Police Department’s mosque surveillance strategy as “discriminatory.”

OSF funded groups, including Muslim Advocates, the ACLU, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed lawsuits challenging the NYPD’s surveillance program as unconstitutional. Police Commissioner William Bratton ended the policy in 2014.”Their only ‘crime’ is that they are Muslim in America,” Khera wrote in a June 6, 2012 op-ed posted on CNN.com.

The NYPD monitored almost all aspects of Muslim life ranging from mosques and student associations, to halal butcher shops and restaurants to private citizens. A federal district court dismissed the suit, but the Third Circuit Court of Appeals revived it in October 2015. New York settled the lawsuit in January, placing the NYPD under supervision of an independent observer appointed by City Hall.

Downplaying Radicalization and the Jihadist Threat

OSF accused conservative opponents of “borrowing liberally from Joe McCarthy’s guilt by association tactics.” It complained in a Sept. 14, 2010 memo to its U.S. Programs Board that the “homegrown terrorism narrative” resulted in “discriminatory” targeting of Muslims by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI.

Khera often expresses similar sentiments. She accused the FBI of engaging in “entrapment operations” to target “innocent” Muslims after former Attorney General Eric Holder called sting operations an “essential law enforcement tool in uncovering and preventing terror attacks.”

She and her organization played a central role in late 2011 when Muslim groups called on the Obama administration to purge FBI training materials that they deemed offensive. FBI counterterrorism training materials about Islam contained “woefully misinformed statements about Islam and bigoted stereotypes about Muslims,” she complained in a Sept. 15, 2011 letter. She objected to describing zakat – the almsgiving tax mandate on all Muslims – as a “funding mechanism for combat.”

Yet numerous Muslim commentators describe zakat as a funding mechanism for jihad. A footnote for Surah 9:60 found in “The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an,” says that zakat can be used to help “those who are struggling and striving in Allah’s Cause by teaching or fighting or in duties assigned to them by the righteous Imam, who are thus unable to earn their ordinary living.”

The Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America issued a 2011 fatwa saying zakat could be used to “support legitimate Jihad activities.”

Following Khera’s letter, then-White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan announced a review of “CVE-related instruction across all levels of government.” This review resulted in a purge of 700 pages of material from 300 presentations. This included PowerPoints and articles describing jihad as “holy war” and portraying the Muslim Brotherhood as group bent on world domination.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s bylaws describe these ultimate ambitions and imply the need for violence: “The Islamic nation must be fully prepared to fight the tyrants and the enemies of Allah as a prelude to establishing an Islamic state.”

Khera’s influence with the Obama administration

Khera enjoys close connections with the Obama White House. Visitor logs show that Khera went to the White House at least 11 times.

Khera played a central role persuading the Obama administration to purge Department of Homeland Security records related to individuals and groups with terror ties, former Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) Agent Phil Haney told the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

His superiors ordered him to “modify” 820 CPB TECS records about the Muslim Brotherhood network in America, Haney said. Irrefutable evidence from the 2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas financing trial proved that many of these groups and individuals assisted Hamas, Haney said.

The HLF trial substantiated deep connections between American Islamist groups such as the Islamic Society of North America, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a Hamas-support network created by the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.

A 2009 OSF funding document claims credit for helping persuade then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to order a review of border screening procedures. It also reveals that Muslim Advocates worked with “DHS staff to develop a revised border policy.”

The Muslim Advocates’ report recommended the “review and reform of … [Customs and Border Patrol policies and practices that target Muslim, Arab and South Asian Americans for their First Amendment protected activities, beliefs and associations; and … law enforcement and intelligence activities that impose disparate impacts on Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities.” It also asked DHS to prevent CPB agents from probing about political beliefs, religious practices, and contributions to “lawful” charitable organizations.

Muslim Advocates claimed a pivotal role in getting the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to reverse a new 2010 policy enhancing the screening on travelers from 14 countries, many of them predominately Muslim. The rule was proposed in the wake of the attempt by underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a Detroit-bound plane weeks earlier.

Muslim Advocates and several OSF grantees met with Napolitano and other top DHS officials, and the policy was canceled three months later. Muslim Advocates claimedthat the Obama administration “made special mention” of its role in reversing the TSA policy.

“This broke into the open with the great purge of 2011 and 2012,” Haney said, recalling Brennan’s letter to Khera announcing that materials she complained about would be removed.

The purge accompanied a practice of meeting with Islamist groups as community partners, Haney said.

In addition to the purge of training material, documents related to people and groups with terrorism ties such as Canadian Muslim Brotherhood leader Jamal Badawi and the Pakistan-based Tablighi Jamaat movement also disappeared from CPB records. (Tablighi Jamaat often serves as a de facto recruiting conduit for groups such as al-Qaida and the Taliban.)

Investigators might have had a better chance of thwarting the San Bernardino and the June Orlando shootings had those Tablighi Jamaat records remained available, Haney said, because the shooters’ respective mosques appeared in the deleted 2012 Tablighi Jamaat case report.

The Obama administration’s “absolute refusal to acknowledge that individuals who are affiliated with networks operating here in the United States, and their deliberate deletion of any evidentiary pieces of information in the system, has made us blind and handcuffed,” Haney said. “The proof of it is San Bernardino and Orlando.

“They obliterated the entire [Tablighi Jamaat] case as if it never existed.”

Haney’s claims have met with some skepticism. Haney stands by his claims and says critics “made a lot of factual errors.”

Still, Muslim Advocates’ success reversing the TSA policy was among the accomplishments showing that it “has proved itself to be an effective advocate on the national stage,” an April 25, 2011 OSF document said. It recommended renewing a $440,000 grant to “support the core operating costs of Muslim Advocates.”

In doing so, the Soros-funded OSF weakened U.S. national security and potentially left it vulnerable to the jihadi attacks we have been seeing in the homeland since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

The FBI held an unusual press conference today in the case of last month’s terror attack at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The attacker, 20-year old Somali refugee Dahir Adan, was shot and killed on the scene by an off-duty police officer after stabbing ten mall workers and shoppers.

The press conference was unusual in that the investigation into the matter is still ongoing, but the FBI and local law enforcement felt the need to release graphic video of the attacks in order to shoot down various conspiracy theories circulating in the Minnesota Somali community and perpetuated by Black Lives Matter groups.

The county prosecutor in St. Cloud says an off-duty police officer was justified in fatally shooting Dahir Adan, the mall stabbing suspect.

The stabbings at a central Minnesota mall last month that wounded 10 likely was premeditated by the attacker, who may have become radicalized recently, federal authorities said Thursday.Dahir Ahmed Adan became interested in Islam in the last several months, withdrew from his friends and encouraged his sisters to be more religious, FBI Special Agent Rick Thornton said at a news conference.

Witnesses told investigators that 20-year-old Adan yelled “Islam, Islam” and “Allahu akbar,” as well as asking several people whether they were Muslim before stabbing them during the Sept. 17 attack, which started outside Crossroads Center mall before moving inside.

“We were told Adan had not previously shown an interest in religion. Adan also encouraged some female relatives to become more religiously observant,” Thornton said, adding that investigators continue to analyze Adan’s digital footprint, including his social media and online activity, and are trying to obtain permission to unlock his smartphone.

FBI Director James Comey said last week it appeared Adan was at least partly inspired by extremist ideology. Thornton also said that Adan went from being a high academic performer to failing out of college “almost overnight” after taking an increased interest in Islam.

America is well-known for its advancement of freedom and democracy but in an environment where the threat of terrorism is a real and present danger Americans are often faced with the struggle between liberty or security. A recent New York Timesarticle called Extremist Imam Tests F.B.I. and the Limits of the Law touches upon how Imam Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa has been making authorities question the boundaries of this dilemma. Despite, Bengharsa allegedly telling Muslims that they “must strictly follow the shariah, or Islamic law, no matter where they live[,]” according to the Times – one can arguably say that he has went so far as to have caused incitement to violence/terrorism. They report on how Bengharsa has supported ISIS via social media:

But in the last two years, Imam Bengharsa’s public pronouncements have taken a dark turn. On Facebook, he has openly endorsed the Islamic State, posted gruesome videos showing ISIS fighters beheading and burning alive their enemies and praised terrorist attacks overseas.

Could one imagine if a Christian pastor endorsed a terrorist group and posted scenes of their grisly murders online – a group that is dedicated to destroying the U.S. and the rest of the West? There would be widespread outrage. Apparently, one saying that they support ISIS isn’t a crime in and of itself according to FBI director Comey, who has stated, “It’s even protected speech to say I’m a fan of the Islamic State so-called[.]” However, with Bengharsa there seems to be a trend of radical associations. In one case he actually gave money ($1,300check) to a Muslim convert in Detroit, Sebastian Gregerson or Abdurrahaman Bin Mikaayl, who has compiled of a number of deadly weapons – including explosives (grenades). It is possible that Gregerson may have been under the inspiration of former Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki – because when the FBI went into Gregerson’s home they discoveredCDs labeled “Anwar al-Awlaki[.]” The FBI also had suspicions that Bengharsa and Gregerson were possibly involved in the scheming of a terror attack:

Nearly a year ago, in fact, the F.B.I. said in a court filing — accidentally and temporarily made public in an online database — that agents suspected the two men were plotting terrorism. “Based on the totality of the aforementioned information and evidence, there is reason to believe that Bengharsa and Gregerson are engaged in discussions and preparations for some violent act on behalf of” the Islamic State, an agent wrote.

Supposedly, there’s “no proof that he [Bengharsa] knew Mr. Gregerson planned to buy illegal explosives.” The Times piece notesthat in Bengharsa’s checkbook he put “zakat” (charity) in reference to the $1,300 check. We have seen before how zakat funding has made its way to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. In fact, some authoritative Islamic texts on Islamic jurisprudence such as The Reliance of the Traveler, A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law reveal that jihadists are one of the recipients of zakat. In this particular book there are eight types of zakat recipients – the seventh category includes:

THOSE FIGHTING FOR ALLAH

The seventh category is those fighting for Allah, meaning people engaged in Islamic military operations for whom no salary has been allotted in the army roster (O: but who are volunteers for jihad without remuneration). They are given enough to suffice them for the operation, even if affluent; of weapons, mounts, clothing, and expenses (O: for the duration of the journey, round trip, and the time they spend there, even if prolonged. Though nothing has been mentioned here of the expense involved in supporting such people’s families during this period, it seems clear that they should also be given it).

The Timesarticle also leaves room for a possible connection between Bengharsa and the radical Yusuf Wehelie. Apparently, in 2010 Wehelie and his brother were halted in Cairo from returning back to the U.S. by the FBI. Of course, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Hamas linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) complained – CAIR still has a sympathetic letter from Yusuf Wehelie on its website attached here. Wehelie was so radical that:

At Yusuf Wehelie’s detention hearing in July, the authorities said he had told undercover agents that he supported the Islamic State and that if he couldn’t join it overseas, he would attack a military recruiting center, possibly using explosives. (Mr. Wehelie’s lawyer, Nina Ginsberg, said that in later recorded conversations, he disavowed those statements and later stopped replying to the undercover agents.)

It’s no surprise that CAIR would support a jihadist – knowing how the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organization is unwavering in their commitment to “civilization jihad” which seeks “to subvert our society from within using the very freedoms they will then take away.” Jihadists and Islamists may use different tactics but they basically have the same goals.

There might also be a possible connection between Bengharsa and Maalik Alim Jones. According to The Washington Times, Jones was accused of providing “material support to al Shabaab and the receipt of military-type training from the terrorist group[,]” among other things. Apparently, Jones went to a Baltimore mosque where Bengharsa sometimes preached. In addition to everything mentioned above, Bengharsa allegedly “transferred money three times to an unnamed person in Yemen[,]” and “received $902,710 in wire transfers in 2014 and 2015, possibly an inheritance.” Furthermore, a couple of Bengharsa’s social media posts shown below with commentary (gathered from the New York Times) capture the type of hatred and anti-American/Western rhetoric he espouses.

It’s disturbing to know that Bengharsa was a chaplain for several years in Maryland prisons likely contributing to the Muslim radicalization problem. It’s almost like these supporters of jihad have to directly call for a specific attack in order to be apprehended by authorities. If we keep allowing these jihadists to establish vast networks of contacts, while building up their arsenals we are only making it easier for the next jihadist to takeover and continue the jihadist agenda. We must allow our law enforcement to be able to do their job effectively in combating jihad.

The FBI has been unable to find charges that stick to a Maryland Imam who openly encourages American Muslims to join the Islamic State.

The Imam, Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa, openly endorsed ISIS on facebook, has allegedly radicalized at least two would-be American terrorists, and is known to have sent large sums of money to active terrorist zones. At every turn, Bengharsa has pushed the First Amendment to its limit and shrouds his activities in secrecy to avoid prosecution.

Bengharsa is openly implicated in providing nearly 1300 dollars to would-be American terrorist Sebastian Gregerson, explicitly to expand his firearms and explosives arsenal. A 2015 FBI affidavit against Gregerson admits “there is reason to believe that Bengharsa and Gregerson are engaged in discussions and preparations for some violent act on behalf of [ISIS.]”

Bengharsa covered his alleged terrorism sponsorship by writing off the money as “zakat,” which loosely translates to Islamic charity. Bengharsa’s exploitation of charity laws gives him plausibility deniability as to how the funds would be put to use. ISIS militants frequently use the term Zakat in Iraq and Syria to secure extortion payments from the residents it controls.

Court Documents reviewed by The New York Times reveal Bengharsa has plenty of money, receiving a sum of nearly a million dollars in a recent wire transfer. The transfer came around the same time Bengharsa began to preach on behalf of the Islamic State. He is known to have transferred money to Yemen three times, where there is an active al-Qaida and Islamic State insurgency.

“It feels like McCarthyism,” Bengharsa told The Detroit News in 2015. He continued, “I am an advocate of the United States and the West getting the hell out of the Middle East and the Muslim world.”

He brushed off his alleged role in terrorist financing, saying, “If that individual turns around and wants to use that money for something else that’s illegal, the person who gave the money cannot be held responsible.”

Many of the questions UTT gets these days revolve around our thoughts on various talking heads who seems to “get it” about the Islamic threat. Often times the questioners are disappointed to hear the truth UTT shares with them about the person whom they were inquiring.

It is important at this time in the war we all understand that any departure from the truth about the threat we are facing from the Global Islamic Movement provides space in which our enemies can operate.

Remember, our enemy is working most diligently and most effectively in the information battlespace.

Anyone giving our enemy room to maneuver is serving the enemy’s cause not America’s – no matter what their intentions.

What boxes the enemy in is the truth about who they are and what they are doing.

So today, the UTT team would like to offer three simple things to help our readers discern who among the talking heads are intentionally or unintentionally giving our enemies rooms to move, and those speakers who are on point:

How does the speaker refer to the threat? Does he use terms like Islam, Jihad, Global Islamic Movement? Or does he use terms intentionally meant to keep the discussion away from doctrinal Islam like violent extremists, radical terrorists, radical Muslims, or Islamism.

Does the speaker say such things as: “The vast majority (or “99.9%”) of Muslims do not support what ISIS and Al Qaeda stand for,” “We must use moderate Muslims to drive a wedge between them and the extremist Muslims,” or other such nonsense?

Does the speaker claim he/she was “purged” from the government because of his stance on the threat of Islam? There are three prominent speakers on the circuit today who claim this. If someone was promoted and kept inside the government during the current administration at a time when those speaking real truth were pushed out, how can one claim he was purged?

UTT hopes these simple guidelines will help you discern truth-tellers from liars.

The Global Islamic Movement, including all of the jihadi organizations as well as jihadis killing people around the world from New York to London to Paris to Brussels to San Bernadino and Orlando, states they are muslims waging jihad in the cause of allah in order to establish a caliphate under sharia (Islamic law).

Its all about sharia.

Anyone watering the truth down at this point in the war is giving our enemy the ability to keep Americans from understanding the true nature of the threat while allowing the jihad to advance forward and making our victory that much more difficult.

From time to time, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the country’s most senior military officer below the commander-in-chief himself, puts out a National Military Strategy. This document is intended for senior American military commanders around the world and sets out big picture strategy guidance for how the U.S. military ought to cope with the myriad threats it may face in the line of duty.

New Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Marine General Joseph Dunford is compiling a new National Military Strategy. Special Operations Command (SoCom), the branch of the military charged with hunting down and killing terrorists, is providing input and expertise to the report.

SoCom is pushing for Salafi jihadism to be discussed in the report as the branch of Sunni Islam responsible for most global terrorism in the world today. It is the ideology shared by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

“If you look at threat doctrine from that perspective, it’s a much bigger problem because it’s not just the violent jihadists, it’s the non-violent jihadists who support them,” one person knowledgeable about the National Military Strategy told The Washington Times. “Pretending there is no relationship between the violent jihadists and Islam isn’t going to win. We’re completely ignoring the war of ideas. We’re still in denial. We’re pretending the enemy doesn’t exist.”

Dunford’s staff declined to comment on the upcoming report, which will be classified. The last National Military Strategy, by the previous chairman, General Martin Dempsey, was released publicly on the Joint Chiefs of Staff website. It did not make mention the ideological roots of terrorism.

Sources close to the team responsible for preparing the National Military Strategy told The Washington Times Dunford’s staff was not persuaded on the merits of including the term.

“Al Qaeda and the radical fundamentalists that constitute the new ‘global jihadi movement’ are not theological outliers. They are part of a broader community of Islamists known as ‘Salafis’ (commonly called ‘Wahhabis’).”

He distinguished between violent and non-violent Salafis saying “The jihadi faction believes that violence can be used to establish Islamic states and confront the United States and its allies. Non-violent Salafis, on the other hand, emphatically reject the use of violence and instead emphasize propagation and advice (usually private) to incumbent rulers in the Muslim world.”

Wictorowicz details several important theological points that distinguish this movement, notably the use of takfir to brand the enemies of the jihadi movement as apostates deserving of death and the concept of jahilliya which posits that the contemporary Muslim world is not really Muslim because they follow man-made laws and are therefore akin to the pagans who ruled Arabia before the time of Mohammed.

He names Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb as a central figure in the development of this doctrine.

Understanding this application of radical theology to the political sphere helps us to identify why certain groups are dedicated to fighting the United States and helps in setting out clearly the differences between Salafi jihadism and Sunni Islam in general.